Old Man Arc
by dw77
Summary: The Salemites should have known better than to steal something so precious. I mean yeah they are worth 40,000 lien; but you don't pull something like this without expecting some consequences. The world shall tremble and gods will die, watch as old man Arc embarks on his journey to recover or avenge his lost lawn gnomes.


Hello and welcome All, I hope you all enjoy this story. It is heavily based on "Old Man Henderson" one of my favorite tales and something I strongly suggest you all check out. I originally wrote this with hopes to find a "RWBY Watches" fanfic writer to write the reactions, but it took on a life of its own. If any of you who do write those stories like the idea, please feel free, just let me know via PM. Thanks and Enjoy the show.  
***Edit notice: minor grammar and punctuation edits.**

* * *

Old Man Arc reclined in a lawn-chair in his home, smoking a blunt, and completely comfortable despite wearing combat boots. He turned his head to stare at a wall he painted to look like a Mistralian beach. "You know, Zwei?" He addressed the stuffed Corgi currently resting on the arm of his chair; "You're a good friend. Most people would've asked for a hit, but you know how much I love this shit. Way better than what we had back in Vacuo." he chuckled as his eyes defocused, then he began to reminisce "You know, I still remember the first time I got high. Back of my older brother's van. Know it must've been some good shit too, because I've only got sisters. Ain't that right, Cardin?" He sat up to look over to an empty corner of the room.

"... Cardin?" He then got up, mildly concerned, something was wrong. "Man, what the hell?" Arc then began to search the house in earnest, tearing each room apart in turn, each empty room adding to his growing frenzy, his orange Menagerian shirt fluttering in the air behind him as he moved. Having searched each room in his house he returned to the main living area for one last check before moving back to the kitchen and sitting down "Where the hell are my lawn gnomes? I mean, did somebody steal them? Who the hell would steal them? Yeah, they're worth a lot, but come on." He then pulled out a sharpie out of a pocket he had sloppily added to his cargo shorts, and began to scribble on the tile surface of his table. "Alright, 215 gnomes, total weight about 800 pounds, total value approaching 40 thousand lien." he paused looking at the numbers written on the white tile "Not a one man job. Need help to carry them, need help to sell them. I'm looking at a large and well organized group of assholes."

He looked into the middle distance as he tried to figure out who could have stolen his investment. "Like those guys down the street? They're Redeemers, right? Large religious group, come around in the early morning like those damned Vaccies... Zwei, I think we've got a lead." He quickly got up almost slipping on the wheel in the heel of his boots in his haste. He made his way to his cupboard and poured most of a bottle of Valean Whiskey in a large cup, grabbed his keys from amongst his golf, hockey and figure skating trophies as he left the house, got in his car and checked his Mohawk in the mirror before putting the keys in the ignition. Arc proceeded to back carefully out of the driveway before slamming the pedal down, peeling out as he made a beeline straight to the nearby church, determined to recover his lost gnomes.

* * *

Sun, the local school's star wrestler, sat in his car outside the local Salemite church during one of their recruitment meetings, _'Blake, guys... Damnit what's so special about these freaking cultists?'_ his knuckles grew white as he gripped the steering wheel. Realizing he was letting his anger get to him he forced himself to release the wheel, anger, even justified since as far as he was concerned this cult had destroyed his social life, wouldn't get him anywhere. He just couldn't decide if joining was a price worth paying to reconnect with his friends and girlfriend. _'It's probably safer to stick with the plan...' _he thought letting out a breath as he let himself fall slack against the seat of his car, after all; all he had to do was wait until the place was empty before he could... _Investigate._

Meanwhile Private Investigator Qrow Branwen, acting on a tip that the recently prominent 'Disciples of the Pale Queen' may be involved with human trafficking sat, a case of beer in easy reach, in a rented apartment across the street from the church, watching for any movement through his binoculars, pen and notepad at the ready so he could capture anything that might help him solve the missing persons case he had been given.

Doctor Oobleck, a few scrap pages of a odd and fascinating tome he had found kept safe in a briefcase he kept on his person had joined the cult to find out a bit more about this 'book of the dead" he had found he had found scraps of recently, as he listened to the priest he found himself beginning to agree with them against his better judgement. Regardless it would all be worth it if he could begin to decipher this ancient tome with their help.

Old Man Arc, drove his Atlesian Century twenty miles an hour over the speed limit as he jammed to the FNKI CD that was stuck in his car radio. He paused and sniffed at the air, taking a moment before muttering 'Redeemers'. Coming up on the church, far too fast, he rapidly pulled the handbrake whipping the car around in circles before stopping in a near perfect parallel park just before the stairs to the main entrance in clear sight of both Qrow and Sun. Opening the door he got out, Zwei trailing on a leash behind him dropping out just before the door slammed shut.

In full view of Qrow, Arc opened the trunk proceeding to shove 'Sultry Cindy', an inflatable sex toy of exceptional quality, to one side and pulled out a Mistrali-made "Jackhammer" full-auto 10 gauge combat shotgun. Arc then slammed the trunk closed then turned and climbed the stairs of the building. Cresting the top of the stairs Old man Arc paused raised his leg into the air and kicked open the door, and the world around him seemed to freeze, nobody knowing what to do.

Well... Nobody except for Mr. Arc that is. He quickly leveled his weapon at the head priest and cried out cried out in an incredibly heavy accent "**MUCKLE DARMED CULTI 'AIR EH VACCIES BE KEEPIN' ME WEE MEN!?**"

The head priest unable to understand Arc's simple request to return his lawn gnomes; assumed that the crazy guy with a Mohawk was trying to cast a spell at him in an elder tongue and did the most reasonable thing he could think of in such a situation: He grabbed the ritual dagger on the Altar, drove it through the throat of the nearest Cultist and summoned a Beowulf. The sudden murder followed immediately by the sudden emergence of a beast of crystallized madness simply broke the minds of most of the cultists who simply collapsed into limp piles on the floor, a few with stronger wills made pitiful attempts to flee. Soon only three men still stood, partially surrounding the beast of darkness, Head Priest Tyrian Callows who relished the carnage to come, Doctor Oobleck who stood his ground despite the sheer terror he felt as he tried to regain control of himself; and Old Man Arc.

Before the Beowulf could attack Arc uttered something that the others around him couldn't understand, it sounded like "That's whit ah ca' an hackit poodle". Acting quickly he aimed the shotgun at the beowulf's head and pulled the trigger, squeezing off a three round burst, more than enough to reduce the eldritch abomination's head to a creamy paste, before turning his attention back to the now fleeing lead cultist.

* * *

Today had started off as such a good day for Tyrian Callows, a new recruit, a foolish professor, to worship his goddess, even a chance to summon one of his goddess' blessed gifts when a crazy man showed up spouting things in an eldritch tongue.

Well... it had been going well right up until that same blessing had its head erased in a burst of shotgun fire, Tyrian knew when to cut his losses, and turned to flee. These fools around him who went mad weeping in fear from their first sight of a Beowulf weren't worthy of serving his goddess. Still their lives were worth something if they bought him the time to escape from this obvious avatar of... he didn't know what really...

"YE SIC YER POODLE OAN ME 'N' THEN HUV A GO TAE RUN! YE'R NAE GETTING AWA' LIK' THAT!"

It was in that moment Tyrian knew it was over. He had failed his godde...

"Can't we all just calm down!?" Doctor Oobleck shouted as he tried to play peace maker mid murderous rampage. A stupid mistake and he didn't last long. Still Tyrian tried to take advantage of the distraction, he reached to push the bar on the door this was it _'Yes! I'm going to...'_

***BANG***

Tyrian Callows knew no more.

* * *

As the now headless lead cultist dropped to the floor and the other cultists were reduced to little more than as weeping balls of fear from sight of the beast which should not be; Arc couldn't help but comment.

"Bunch o' pumpin' pansies."

He turned back toward the corpse of the Beowulf, dropping his zipper he pissed on the corpse, before turning back toward the door as he zipped up. Taking a couple steps toward the door Arc pulled out a lighter flicked it open and as he passed a tapestry on the wall and ran the naked flame along the bottom edge of the intricately woven wall rug setting it alight and walking out the door.

Detective Qrow watched stunned as the man in the Mohawk threw his shotgun and stuffed toy dog into the back seat of car, then vaulted through the open window, and mere seconds passed before the car was gone peeling out as the driver put the pedal to the metal as he left the scene of the crime. Qrow watched as mere moments later another vehicle fled the scene.

"What the hell was that?" he asked himself as he pondered how to record what just happened, he then noticed the clock, doing a quick double take he realized only ten minutes had passed since his last entry. He took a longing look at the flask he kept with him before he noticed a flickering in his peripheral vision looking up a fire had already consumed the entrance to the building.

"Shit." He reached into his coat pocket grabbed his scroll and placed a call to emergency services. This was not shaping up to be a good night.

* * *

As Old Man Arc got out of the car in front of the driveway he had a horrible realization. 'I forgot about the Gnomes!' realizing what danger he had left them in he immediately began to sprint down the street leaving his car behind. When he finally got back to the church the fire department were on the scene and had gotten the fire under control.

Seizing the opportunity Arc grabbed the shoulder of the nearest firefighter whose name was revealed by his badge to be Neptune. "Excuse me uhhh" Arc quickly glanced at the nameplate "Neptune, were there any Gnomes in there? Did you save the Gnomes?" The Neptune for his part assumed that Arc was just some crazy homeless man and set about assuaging his fears. "We didn't find any gnomes inside." Neptune tore his shoulder free of the grasp of the man he only heard a short "Thank God" before turning his full focus back to the disaster in front of him.

Arc on the other hand was thankful that the Gnomes weren't there he hadn't lost any and at any rate after killing that many little people probably would have been considered a hate crime.

This still left him with a problem. He still didn't know where his gnomes were.

Remembering that Junior's Klub wasn't too far away, old man Arc decided if his home wasn't a good enough place to figure out where his gnomes were maybe the Klub would be better suited for the task at hand. He quickly made his way to

With Junior being sure to stay as far away from him as possible Arc placed several sheets of paper on the bar in front of him; as he sat on the nearest bar stool and wracked his brain trying to figure out where his gnomes could have been hidden; another patron's scroll rang playing the theme from some old cop show. At the sound of the song Old Man Arc realized he knew fuck all about looking for people, but a Private Detective... A P. I. certainly would.

So after a few minutes in the phone book, he decided to literally call the first name he saw under the P.I. heading. Through what can only be described as concentrated bad luck, the phone in Qrow's office started to ring.

"Hello?"

"I need a man who's good at finding things, doesn't have any great love of religious loonies, and doesn't mind maybe shooting an ugly ass poodle or two."

"... I'm sorry, but WHO is this?"

"Name's Arc. I need some help from a professional."

"No argument here. So, you're looking to hire a PI?"

"Yep. Had something precious stolen from me."

"And that was?"

"Roughly 40 thousand lien of Lawn Gnomes." Silence seemed to consume all sound in the air before Qrow finally broke it.

"What?"

"I'm not saying it was cultists, but I'm pretty sure it was cultists. Or aliens, but that seems unlikely given the circumstances. If you're interested we can talk down at the Klub on the south side by the river." He then hung up.

Since Qrow was quickly getting nowhere with his missing persons case, he decided it'd be good for a laugh. Old Man Arc meanwhile had discovered that Junior had acquired a new arcade machine, and decided to fill the score board with profanity.

When Qrow arrived at the bar, he asked for "some guy named Arc" and was promptly pointed to a man in... unusual attire who was teaching a girl, who looked suspiciously like his blonde niece, how to shoot pool.

"Arc?"

"Hold on, just a second. The important part of a shot in pool is to make sure it's smooth. Take all the time you need to line up the shot, don't let them rush you." He says, and then he sinks his last three balls and the '8' in one stroke. The man then turns to the detective. Qrow promptly recognized him, and moved to leave. Unluckily for him, Arc decided to follow.

"So how do you think you're gonna go about this?"

"I'm gonna get the hell back in my car and leave the crazy ass arsonist/murderer behind."

"No shit?" He looks over his shoulder back at the bar "Which one?" He looks back at the detective; now poking him in the chest.

"What?"

"The church! You burned down a church!" Qrow whispered angrily trying desperately to avoid drawing attention.

"They started it." Arc responded his face passive as he stared at the man in front of him.

"Because you kicked in the door in with a shotgun?" Qrow asked exasperated at the infuriatingly flawless logic of a complete asshole.

"No. Because they stole my goddamned lawn gnomes."

"Yeah, you mentioned that. How do you fucking steal 40 thousand lien in decorative lawn fixtures? Where the hell did you even get that many gnomes?" Qrow asked exasperated even as he tried to put as much distance between him and the psycho who kept following him out of the bar.

"I worked briefly as a prostitute in Menagerie. The antique gnome collection was my retirement plan." Arc said a completely serious expression on his face.

"What?"

"Ended up riding some dude's junk all the way back home. Hell of an uncomfortable ride, let me tell you. not meant for the ocean blue. And I would know." Arc's expression morphed into the face of someone remembering a painful experience.

"You... understand the logistics... of riding another man's junk... across the ocean..." Qrow said incredulously even as he thought: _'This can't be real, how is he keeping a straight face...'_ Even as they passed through the door of the bar and out into the parking lot.

"Well... in a general sense I suppose. I took a course on ship building back in college. This was before we had these fancy navigational Gypsy Pathfinder Space-fairies."

"... I..." '_What'_ "alright, you said you were looking for gnomes?"

"Actually, that was earlier. Just now I was explaining that I knew so much about catching a ride on somebody's junk because of vigorous study in my youth."

Qrow had to resist the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Let's focus on the Gnomes. You think they were stolen by a cult?"

"Only thing that makes sense from what I know. I want you to look into these 'Disciples of the Pale Queen. See if they're doing anything suspicious."

"Actually, I was looking into them already for another reason: looks like they've got a hand in human trafficking. Lawn Gnomes... seems like an odd direction to go in, but I won't deny that they're up to no good. I'll let you know if I find anything worth talking about."

"Sounds good. I'm usually at the Klub unless I'm not. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go see a man about a horse." Arc then walked across the street, stole a bicycle, and rode off.

* * *

Well that's it for chapter 1, I hope you all enjoyed it, I don't quite have an ETC for chapter 2 but it is about half done. and for those who might want to do a reaction fic chapter to this, please let me know, and I can even provide some insight into some of the deviations from the original "Old Man Henderson" story I have planned.


End file.
